Problem-Solving Exercise : Parade Comes Up Roses Despite the Challenges

Float builder Rick Chapman was running six weeks behind. It was now the end of June--time to get his Rose Parade floats into production--and two of his biggest clients were still groping for ideas.

Honda wanted a waterfall float but had balked at the best available design--a Hawaiian luau scene with a waterfall--because it considered the setting too regional for the car maker’s all-American marketing strategy.

Pepsi was anxious to promote its Slice brand of soft drink with a float that was zesty and upbeat. But so far its marketing think-tank in New York had rejected every zesty idea that Chapman’s designers could muster.

Now, almost in desperation, Chapman tried a switch: With Honda’s OK, he showed the Hawaiian waterfall design to Pepsi.

It was an immediate hit. Members of the Pepsi marketing team recognized that it had all the desirable elements--tropical swimmers that would splash down a water flume, lots of green--a Slice color--and visual impact, with giant tiki masks.

The yearlong effort to plan the Rose Parade was now moving into busy months. Already, the Tournament of Roses’ Float Construction Committee was running regular weekly road tests on a number of nearly completed entries. Other committees had been selected and were beginning to meet, preparing for fall dinners and luncheons, for the selection of the Rose Queen and Royal Court, for bringing in VIPs on parade day, for awarding press credentials, for parking buses and limousines, for judging floats.

Chapman’s designers, feeling the pressure of deadline, now went back to work, looking for something suitable for Honda, with the engineering challenges of a moving waterfall, but unassailably all-American. Honda would expect a bold stroke.

For three weeks, the designers grappled with the problem. Finally, they came up with the answer: a 55-foot inflatable Superman that would be filled with helium and floated above the parade route--a la the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade--on tethers.

“The float that floats,” Chapman said triumphantly. It was shaped in the classic flying pose, with one arm extended. The only difference between this Superman and the balloons of New York’s parade would be that under tournament rules, Superman would have to be covered with floral decoration.

Enthusiastic Reception

Honda embraced the concept enthusiastically, not only because of the theme--”Truth, Justice and the American Way”--but also because of the engineering challenges involved, always a high priority with the car maker.

“The balloon . . . the problems and technology involved, the tons of helium on board and the logistics of teaching people how to fly the balloon--all those things were interesting to Honda,” designer Ben Lovejoy said afterward.

Willie Tokishi, Honda’s community relations vice president in charge of Rose Parade entries, was equally glad for Lovejoy; the solution ended long months of banging his head against the wall. “He was getting so frustrated,” Tokishi said. “He just couldn’t go any more.”

Meanwhile, at Tournament House, the Street Committee convened under Jim Stivers, 67, a veteran of 26 parades who years ago decided to give up aspirations of climbing the tournament ladder.

Made up almost entirely of chairmen from important committees--including Formation Area, Parade Operations, Post Parade, Float Construction and Music, among others--the Street Committee is a vital coordinating group, a forum for comparing notes and for hashing out problems and conflicts. The committee deals in detail with the width of the parade route, the height of trees and power lines, the turning radius of floats and the placement of cameras, light poles, grandstands and portable restrooms.

Stivers helped to form the committee in the mid-1970s, when the growth of the parade made it necessary, and he has been its chairman ever since.

Now, in the early summer, the committee directed that its attention to something new--a pre-parade street show, with music and dance, to kick off the centennial. Performers had to be found, the length and character of the show worked out. Should it last 10 minutes? Fifteen minutes? How would network television handle it? How would the show clear the street and give way to the start of the parade?

The perennial problem of traffic also needed to be addressed. Just before the last parade, two major tie-ups had occurred within the 16-block formation area along South Orange Grove Boulevard. Every year the area is closed to cars the night before the parade, but always they stream in from an uncompleted section of freeway, which cannot be barricaded.

Ray Freer, chairman of the Formation Area Committee, and assistant Dal Swart now had a new way to route that traffic through one part of the formation area and out the side. They prepared a map and took it to Stivers.

Stivers is seen as one of the ranking generals in the army of nearly 900 active volunteers--the man who is looked to late in the year, when the clock is ticking and problems mount from every direction.

“He’s an incredible resource,” Freer said. “He’s seen just about everything, and he’s probably seen it more than once. I can’t imagine going counter to his best judgment.”

Stivers studied the traffic map for a long moment. Try it, he finally said.

Activity at the float barns was reaching a peak. A toy land of giant, fanciful shapes now packed the dimly lighted Pasadena headquarters of C. E. Bent & Sons, the parade’s largest builder. Workers came and went, and across the vast floor welding torches sparked and danced like fireflies.

Large floats not yet under construction were created in scale model so that builders could study how they would complete difficult turns on the route.

Floats are the dominant element of the parade, far outnumbering equestrian groups and marching bands and requiring enormous amounts of design work. Committee members from Float Construction and Parade Operations now made regular appearances at the warehouses, taking notes on steering capabilities and possible design weaknesses.

Bent’s Bill Lofthouse was ecstatic. He had just won approval from the seven-member Design/Variance Committee to have street performers and live music with his float for Unocal, which featured a 26-foot masked jester in a Mardi Gras theme. It was too large, according to parade rules

“I approached them all individually. I lobbied my case, I pleaded my case, I had lunches, I had dinners,” Lofthouse said. “And so, after about six weeks, we finally got an official, in-writing OK.

“This is definitely a prize contender!”

Variances Given Sparingly

In past years variances for oversized or unusual floats were handed out grudgingly, if at all. The relationship between the tournament and the builders was strained and often combative.

White-collar tournament volunteers, shouldering the burden of preserving tradition, held closely to the rules and regarded builders as a careless and unreliable lot. The handful of builders--independent, blue-collar businessmen struggling to earn a living--saw tournament officials as stuffy and unimaginative. They frequently clashed on New Year’s morning over floats that arrived late, or floats that broke down and needed--or didn’t need--to be towed.

“Yelling, screaming, sneaking things past them . . . it was awful,” builder John Richardson recalled.

A turning point came in 1981. Walter Hoefflin III, manager of the tournament’s small paid staff and the son of a past tournament president, conspired with float builder Rick Chapman to get several super-sized floats into the parade. Bypassing the nine-member Executive Committee, Hoefflin solicited the necessary sponsors and persuaded Avco Financial Services to commission a 100-foot whale as the parade’s grand finale.

That entry, built on a bus chassis, would stretch nearly twice the normally allowed length of a float.

When conservative Executive Committee members found out, they were outraged. Private meetings were held at Tournament House. Tournament President Millard Davidson, in particular, was “very anti-whale,” one float builder recalled. “I can remember him telling Rick: ‘There will be no whale in my parade!’ ”

Davidson denied that he opposed the whale but acknowledged his own shock and anger that the committee had been taken by surprise. By the time the plans became known, it was too late to stop them. Sponsors had invested their capital. The whale did make the parade and Hoefflin left the tournament organization under pressure.

In the end, the whale won plaudits. It broke new ground, changing ways of thinking.

Today, tournament officials talk excitedly about spectacular floats such as Bent’s for Unocal or those being built by Chapman.

Chapman now was hiring a subcontractor, an El Cajon-based balloon maker named Bigger Than Life, to fashion the figure of Superman. He also hired structural engineer James Kesler to make necessary calculations for his 67-foot giraffe, a float that would be trying for a height record.

“It used to be that the float (rules) manual was this thick and told you all the things you could not do,” Chapman said, holding his fingers just a quarter inch apart. “Now it’s this thick”--he spread them to half an inch--”and it tells you all the things you can do.”

At 12 high schools across America, the planning and fund raising for marching bands lurched forward.

Dean Immel thought he had found a reduced air fare package for his 165-member marching band from Washington state’s Auburn High School. The deal fell through, however, and he spent weeks searching for a similar rate on some other airline. He also learned he was too late to reserve charter buses through Greyhound; he would have to keep looking.

In Strongsville, Ohio, pop. 30,000, tournament President Jack Biggar arrived as part of the president’s traditional visit to the homes of out-of-state bands. Biggar found himself a first-magnitude celebrity in the American heartland. He met the mayor, got the key to the city, spoke at the Rotary Club, was whisked to Cleveland for an appearance on a TV talk show and boarded a horse-drawn carriage to serve as grand marshal of Strongsville’s annual downtown parade.

At Tournament House, the Design/Variance Committee met to consider a possible design approval for Superman.

Concerns about the inflatable float now focused mainly on the question of lift: Would the balloon, fully decorated, still be light enough to fly?

Chapman wasn’t sure, but he and his designers had dealt at length with the problem. On a typical float, flowers add a pound or two per square foot--even more if dampened by rain. With a surface as large as the 55-foot balloon, that would calculate to perhaps 3,000 pounds, a load that was out of the question.

Instead, Chapman hoped to hold the floral covering to 60 or 80 pounds by using extremely lightweight dried flowers and petals. His balloon makers--already at work on the project--also were planning to put helium-filled “planets,” up to 20 feet in diameter, in the air above Superman as extra lift.

To the extent possible, even Superman’s shape would be tailored for buoyancy. “We’ll exaggerate the biceps,” Chapman said, by means of example. “(But) we can’t afford a mistake. We don’t want this thing to look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

Hard to Manage

The variance committee peppered Chapman with questions. The helium planets were a possible problem aerodynamically; round balloons are difficult to steer, tending to go where the wind blows. At the Foothill Freeway overpass, the high-flying Superman and planets would have to be pulled down to 17 feet, 4 inches, a production that would stretch the float out to perhaps 150 feet in length. That in itself might create navigational problems and perhaps slow the parade on twisting Sierra Madre Boulevard.

The committee had never dealt with such issues before.

Committee members knew that the balloon would fly above a traditional motorized unit on the street, designed to feature an American flag and a heavy floral display. If all else failed, Chapman said, Superman could be held up by metal supports connecting the balloon to the motorized base.

The issues were thrashed out over several meetings. Ultimately, the committee gave its OK, pending road tests.

Chapman held his enthusiasm; his own calculations still showed it might not fly, and he talked of the risks of wind or rain.

But at Honda headquarters, Willie Tokishi was effusive. “Look at that baby!” he said, showing off a rendering. “Isn’t that awesome? And when you see our ad in the (parade) program, it’s completely different. It’s just a shadow on Colorado Boulevard. And the shadow is like this--”Tokishi lowered his head and held out one arm--the Man of Steel.

September had arrived, and by now Tournament House was a hub of action. By month’s end, nearly all of the 29 regular committees would be meeting, many of them on the same afternoons.

One group of key chairmen met to decide the parade lineup, a matter of vital interest to each entrant, since late marchers always run the risk of being excluded from the two-hour network telecasts.

The lineup committee divided the parade into thirds. Honda, whose float had appeared in the first third of the 1988 parade, was automatically rotated to the rear third.

Unocal was due to move into the first third; because its Mardi Gras float was considered particularly splashy, it was shoved all the way to the No. 4 spot. Slice, a newcomer, ended up in the rear third. Its eye-catching waterfall float would need to carry 2,000 gallons of water, so it was placed at spot No. 89; in that position it would line up near a fire hydrant before the parade.

A float with live elephants was placed ahead of the waterfall, rather than behind it, just in case the street should get wet; no one wanted elephants slipping on the pavement.

After hours of discussion, all 114 entrants were set in place. The 1989 parade would have 60 floats, 29 horse groups and 22 bands; it would begin with the Los Angeles All-City Band and end with a float from South Pasadena.

Banners and bunting hung from Tournament House. On a crisp Saturday morning, young women hurried forward in coiffed hair and bright floral-print dresses. They crossed the long porch and made their way to the south lawn, to a garden area of trees and white tables.

Their dream: to be the Rose Queen.

More, perhaps, than any other single element of the parade, the queen and six princesses are thought to symbolize the beauty of the pageant--its elegance and wholesomeness. The Rose Queen enjoys an exultant status in Pasadena; the Royal Court is ubiquitous throughout the fall, attending nearly 90 luncheons, fashion shows and other special events leading up to the parade.

Only a Facade?

Its critics say the traditional court preserves a facade for Pasadena, and that the selection process is a yearly exercise in tokenism. Despite the town’s significant minority population, recent courts have consisted almost invariably of six whites and one black. The image presented to the world is “a totally air-brushed, placid, flowery vision of how life is” in Pasadena, ignoring racial realities, social problems and changing values, said elected city board member Rick Cole.

In that skewed, rose-colored vision, “The greatest aspiration a young woman can have is to grow up to be queen of the Tournament of Roses,” Cole said.

And yet, tradition is revered in Pasadena. Newspaper and television photographers eagerly follow the ritual of selecting the Rose Queen. A year earlier, Julie Jeanne Myers, then 17, had called it the fulfillment of a lifelong dream when she was chosen. A few nights later, nearly 100 members of her high school band had gathered to play a surprise serenade on her lawn.

Passing It On

Now Myers was on hand to give instruction to this year’s hopefuls. They would have to walk, one by one, past the fountain in the rose garden, stopping and pirouetting for the nine judges. Myers demonstrated the pirouette and offered kernels of wisdom:

“If somebody tells you you have lipstick on your teeth, don’t take it personally,” she called out to one group. “Just lick your teeth, smile and go on.”

Nearly 850 young students--all aged 17 to 21 and from Pasadena-area high schools and colleges--turned out on the first weekend of tryouts. For one contestant named Natalie--forbidden by tournament rules from divulging her last name--it was a final chance before passing beyond her school years of eligibility. She said the nervousness was “like an aftershock from an earthquake. It’s my third year,” she said breathlessly. “I’m hoping this is it, praying this is it.”

At his high school campus in Auburn, Wash., band director Dean Immel received a packet in the mail from his brother, Gerald, a television composer for “Dallas” and “Knot’s Landing.”

It was the third part of a march written especially for the Auburn High band’s performance in the Rose Parade. Doubly pleased, Immel found that he liked the music: “It’s a combination of a Souza march and (Gerald’s) normal music,” he said.

In Strongsville, Ohio, band director Ken Mehalko staged his third fund-raising sale of hoagie sandwiches. The students and boosters had now made and sold 30,000 of the foot-long sandwiches--about enough, Mehalko calculated, to stretch the entire 5 1/2-mile length of the Rose Parade.

At Tournament House, announcement day arrived for the Royal Court. The field had been narrowed to 200, then to 75, then to the final 29. Now they crowded onto the south steps on a mid-October morning, accompanied by the pep-rally blare of a marching band.

The seven descended a red carpet as their names were called and received bouquets of roses; in a week, one would also be chosen Rose Queen.

The new princesses--”instant celebrities,” Queen and Court chairman Lorne Brown said--were whisked through a long day of grooming. They listened to advice, got policy handbooks, went to lunch, stopped at the hair salon. They visited a department store to try on pre-selected outfits. Members of the committee--the ever-present chaperones--studied the look and fit of each garment.

A red silk raincoat drew raves. “Seven young ladies walking in, all of them lovely, in that color--pow!” Brown exclaimed.

Next it was a royal-blue evening gown. Kristen Hansen, 17, modeled while a committee member’s wife stepped forward to demonstrate the gown’s versatility: It could also be worn a little sexier--”like this,” she said, drawing the neckline down, exposing Hansen’s bare shoulders.

“Ooooooh,” someone gasped.

Suddenly the room became filled with a nervous, awkward silence. Hansen continued to smile. Brown looked uncomfortable.

“I like it the other way better,” he finally said.

And then everyone laughed, feeling more at ease.

“Remember,” committeeman John Bonholtzer Jr. chided, “this is Pasadena.”

The conservative roots of Pasadena have had at least one unexpected effect on the town’s history: They gave rise, in the late 1970s, to a counter-culture spoof known as the Doo-Dah Parade, a wacky, irreverent event that has attracted its own large following.

With marching units like “Snotty Scotty and the Hankies” and the “Marching Leech Kazoo Band” (a procession of giant bloodsuckers), the Doo-Dah Parade is everything the Rose Parade is not, including a thorn in the side of the establishment.

“I’m astonished it’s been successful,” said former tournament president Lathrop K. (Lay) Leishman, 84, reflecting the view of many Rose Parade officials. “It’s been so shoddy. It doesn’t have any class.”

At Tournament House, the seven new Rose princesses sat before a fireplace, receiving etiquette lessons from Margarethe Bertelson-Knoblock, the 1960 Rose Queen. Knoblock was a self-proclaimed stickler: No gum (“a real no-no”). No slang. No chewing the ice from drinks. No eating once the speech-making begins.

Hold beverages in your left hand, she instructed them. “You’ll always have a nice warm hand to shake.” Don’t leave the table during a program. Don’t cross your legs.

Smile--always.

“We should all carry clean handkerchiefs,” Knoblock said. “I think it’s a must. You never know when you’ll get that post-nasal drip or unexpected tear.”

Surrounded by half-built creations at his Azusa warehouse, float builder Rick Chapman was struggling to make up lost ground. The designs and calculations were finally ready for the 67-foot giraffe.

The engineering was tricky because of the float’s need to pass beneath the freeway overpass. One strategy was to build the shoulder at 17 feet--4 inches under--and enable the huge giraffe to bend from the neck, ducking like a real animal.

But that meant that the neck and head had to be 50 feet long, a length that would throw the float off balance whenever it tilted forward.

The solution, Chapman hoped, was a second element--a wheeled calliope pulled behind the giraffe. To the crowds, it would be an added bit of entertainment; to the float itself, it would be a crucial counterweight. The numbers produced by engineer James Kesler showed that the hydraulic forces would have to be enormous; dual cylinders would need to generate 50,000 pounds of force to lift the neck back to upright position.

Tournament members fretted over it long after the variance approval: What if those cylinders failed? How would the parade look if the giraffe went the entire route with its nose to the ground?

Meanwhile, Chapman looked at the first version of the Superman balloon, created of vinyl-covered nylon. The critique was harsh: The ears were too flat. The eyeballs, eyelids and lips had too little definition. There was a slight bulge at the temple.

It would need a whole new head.

Out on the broad front lawn of Tournament House, a band blared again as Charmaine Shryock, 17, was chosen the centennial Rose Queen. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was really little,” she told reporters, beaming.

Top tournament officials also were getting rewards--new white Chrysler New Yorkers to use until January.

The Street Committee’s agenda was growing longer; it was November now, and there were problems with where to put TV cameras--ABC was joining the other two networks--and where to put portable grandstands, and where to clear the sidewalks.

Ronald Aday unveiled his convoy schedule for the day before the parade; he wanted the first floats out of Azusa by 2 p.m. so they could begin arriving at 8 at night. Floats from Pasadena would start arriving at 9.

Jim Stivers argued against it; volunteers in the formation area would need time to set up barricades and clear the streets. “You’re not being realistic,” Stivers said. “Nine o’clock is the absolute earliest time anybody can come into the formation area, and 10 is preferable.”

Gary Dorn wondered about the Kodak float. At its road test, he noticed that the shoes of the horses were rubber. “I presume that in the parade they’ll be suitable street shoes.”

“I don’t know much about horse shoes,” Aday told him, “but I’ll check it.”

Meanwhile, in El Cajon, the restyled figure of Superman was inflated.

The 55-foot, $60,000 balloon was given a 70% helium mix. It was tilted upward and suddenly broke free of its tethers. Up, up and away it soared--a tiny speck nearly 7,000 feet high.

“It’s equivalent to having your brand new Mercedes flying through the air with no control over it,” balloon-company owner Roger Christianson said later, “and you’re wondering who it’s going to kill.”

Alarmed employees raced after it in their cars and contacted the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, hoping it could be shot down by police helicopter.

No way, they were told.

Like a bird, like a plane, Superman flew nearly five miles as it slowly deflated, crashing finally into the top of a 1,200-foot mountain. A relieved Christianson told Chapman afterward that his float had “tremendous lift”--far more than he thought it would need.

But it was a worrisome way to find out.